The advances in solid state electronics has permitted miniaturization of discrete circuit elements and also entire circuits themselves into encapsulated packages adapted for mounting to a printed circuit board. For ease in mounting, the packages have been industry standardized with two rows of depending electrical leads adapted for plugging into apertures of a printed circuit board. Such a package is designated as a dual-in-line package (DIP). Such packaging permits a single printed circuit board to carry multiple electronic circuits fabricated from DIPs with the circuit pads of the board interconnecting the leads on the DIPs for desired circuit configurations. Power is bussed selectively to the circuits through a manual switching device. It is desirable that the switching device be of miniature size and in the DIP configuration for mounting directly to the same printed circuit board. It heretofore has been a difficult task to fabricate a switch of such size.
Encapsulation of DIP elements is required for resisting damage and contamination. Encapsulation of a siwtch of small size is difficult since a manually actuated operator must remain exposed and thereby provide a leakage path to the internal parts of the switch.
A circuit path is completed through a miniature switch by contact pressure between electrically conducting parts of the switch. The required pressure is created by deflecting either a resilient contact or one of the poles of the switch. In addition wiping action of the contact surfaces is desirable to assure electrical contact. Such wiping action is produced in prior art switches by deflection of the contact while engaged against one of the switch poles, forcing the contact to wipe as deflection is increased. In a switch of miniature size the resilient contacts become permanently deformed after repeated deflections thereof since the required contact pressure is created by deflecting a relatively short length of contact.